Emergency general surgery in older adult patients: Factors associated with fragmented care

Care fragmentation has been shown to lead to increased morbidity and mortality. We aimed to explore the factors related to care fragmentation after hospital discharge in geriatric emergency general surgery patients, as well as examine the association between care fragmentation and mortality.

We designed a retrospective study of the Nationwide Readmissions Database 2019. We included patients ≥65 years old admitted with an emergency general surgery diagnosis who were discharged alive from the index admission. The primary outcome was 90-day care fragmentation, defined as an unplanned readmission to a non-index hospital. Multivariable logistic regression was performed, adjusting for patient and hospital characteristics.

A total of 447,027 older adult emergency general surgery patients were included; the main diagnostic category was colorectal (22.6%), and 78.2% of patients underwent non-operative management during the index hospitalization. By 90 days post-discharge, 189,622 (24.3%) patients had an unplanned readmission. Of those readmitted, 20.8% had care fragmentation. The median age of patients with care fragmentation was 76 years, and 53.2% were of female sex. Predictors of care fragmentation were living in rural counties (odds ratio 1.76, 95% confidence interval: 1.57-1.97), living in a low-income ZIP Code, discharge to intermediate care facility (odds ratio 1.28, 95% confidence interval: 1.22-1.33), initial non-operative management (odds ratio 1.17, 95% confidence interval: 1.12-1.23), leaving against medical advice (odds ratio 2.60, 95% confidence interval: 2.29-2.96), and discharge from private investor-owned hospitals (odds ratio 1.18, 95% confidence interval: 1.10-1.27). Care fragmentation was significantly associated with higher mortality.

The burden of unplanned readmissions in older adult patients who survive an emergency general surgery admission is underestimated, and these patients frequently experience care fragmentation. Future directions should prioritize evaluating the impact of initiatives aimed at alleviating the incidence and complications of care fragmentation in geriatric emergency general surgery patients.